Apostle (7 page)

“So as long as your papers and payments are up to date,” said Harvath, “you can have whatever you want?”

“It’s complicated.
If
you cross all your t’s and
if
you dot all your i’s you can legally carry a pistol and a long gun. That said, contractors in Kabul still get stopped on a regular basis and have their perfectly registered weapons confiscated. The Afghans do it to Afghan contractors as well as ex-pats. It’s totally fucked up.

“Now, if you get caught with a crew-serve weapon like a PKM, you’re going straight to the big house. Same for grenades and RPGs. Plus P and hollow point ammo are also big no-nos. Even so, everybody’s got that stuff, especially if they plan on traveling outside Kabul. Let’s face it, this isn’t the Caymans, it’s Afghanistan.”

“True.”

“Basically, the number-one rule Greg and I have is to just keep everything below the window line and out of sight.”

“What a scam,” replied Harvath.

“TIA,” said Hoyt as he motioned for Harvath to hand him his bag.

Removing his laptop, Harvath handed Hoyt the pack. “I’m going to need a receipt for that,” he joked.

“You can talk to our accountant when she gets back from mahjong. Anything else?”

“You wouldn’t happen to have a holster for the 19 I’m carrying, would you?”

Hoyt riffled through a few items stacked on one of the shelves in the safe and came up with a Blackhawk Check Six concealable leather holster. He tossed it to Harvath, closed the door, and put the wardrobe back together.

Harvath pulled the Glock from his waistband and set it on the bed. After he had slid the holster onto his belt he replaced his weapon and looked in the bathroom mirror to see if he was printing. Confident no one could see the weapon beneath his untucked shirt, he turned back to Hoyt. “I also need a secure link for email.”

“I’ve got one and Greg’s got one. If that jarhead’s not watching war porn, you can probably get online in his room.”

“Thanks,” said Harvath.

Hoyt waved at him with his cigarette as he went back to whatever it was he’d been doing on his computer.

Gallagher’s room was two doors down and the door was ajar. Harvath knocked, but there was no answer. Pushing the door open, he stepped inside.

Scanning a room when he entered was second nature for Harvath. Years of training had wired him to take a quick and detailed mental picture of what he saw.

For all intents and purposes, Gallagher’s room looked like it belonged to a very neat, very well-organized person. The bed was perfectly made. Papers were stacked neatly on his desk next to his computer. The items on his shelves were in perfect order and precisely spaced. Harvath guessed that a drill instructor could have bounced a quarter off Gallagher’s bed, taken a ruler to the spacing of the items on his shelves, and run a white glove over the door frame and come away with nothing to fault.

The room reflected a picture-perfect Marine—a man who had his act entirely together. That’s what made the last thing Harvath noticed that much more unsettling. In Gallagher’s wastebasket were eleven empty beer bottles. Unless Baba G had been hosting a party last night, it looked like he might have been hitting the booze pretty good. Harvath hoped the man wasn’t being haunted by any demons from his past.

With Khan having been moved, this assignment had already taken one bad turn. It would probably take several more before it was over. That was just the nature of this business. But the last thing Harvath needed to worry about was if Greg Gallagher was going to be able to perform at 100 percent.

He was going to have to keep an eye on him. One screw-up, and good people could be killed.

A
LEXANDRIA
, V
IRGINIA

“I
really appreciate your seeing me so late,” Elise Campbell said as she stepped inside the small Pitt Street town house. “We’ve been on the road a couple of days and I had some paperwork to catch up on after my shift ended tonight.”

“Don’t worry about it,” replied Carolyn Leonard as she took Campbell’s coat and hung it on a peg near the door. “I remember the hours. How about some coffee?”

“Do you have anything stronger?”

“I do,” said Leonard with a smile. “Come on in.”

Carolyn Leonard was a fit and attractive woman, ten years older than Elise Campbell. She had red hair and a quiet, yet powerful presence. Leonard was one of those people you might not notice the moment you walked into a room, but once you did, you couldn’t help but be impressed by the confidence she exuded. It was a trait that, in her personal life, seemed to intimidate most of the men she met. The only ones able to get beyond who she was and what she had done for a living were other law enforcement officers. The fact that she had been the head U.S. Secret Service agent for the previous president of the United States simply freaked a lot of guys out.

“We’re not going to wake the children up, are we?” asked Campbell as she took a seat on a stool in the kitchen.

“They’re not here,” said Leonard of her twins. “They’re visiting my mother.”

Campbell knew well enough not to inquire after Leonard’s ex. He’d left her with two young kids and a mountain of credit card debt at the high point of her career. She was the first woman to ever head a presidential protection detail and the insecure excuse for a man she’d married had not only left her, he’d slashed and burned everything in his path on his way out of the relationship.

As devastating as the experience had been, Leonard had continued, right until the day after the inauguration. She was one of the high profile refuseniks who declined to remain with the Secret Service in the new administration and who had elected to leave, rather than comply with what they felt were dangerous choices being made by the new president. The defections created a lot of bad feelings in an organization that already had significant morale problems.

While many exceptional Secret Service agents still wholeheartedly believed in the mission, there were those who were dead tired of the dearth of leadership and the crushing layers of exceedingly poor management. The newly elected president’s desire to turn his protective detail into a 1980s style Benetton ad, rather than promote, hire, and train on ability, was the tipping point for agents like Leonard.

Despite the bad feelings swirling throughout the Service, agents who knew Carolyn Leonard still respected her. Those who remained behind were indeed sorry to see her go, but few of them held her decision against her, especially not Elise Campbell.

Leonard knew better than anyone how hard it was to be a woman in the Service. She had taken Campbell under her wing early on and had been her mentor as best she could. Being head of the president’s detail and a single mother of two little ones never seemed to leave enough time. Leonard had always felt that she hadn’t done enough for Campbell.

Campbell, on the other hand, had soaked up every piece of advice and had hung on every word of Carolyn’s as if she had been sitting at the feet of a master, which in a way, she had. Leonard was a legend in the Service and Campbell felt honored by their time together, no matter how limited it was.

“Is Chardonnay okay?” asked Carolyn as she pulled a bottle of Toasted Head from the refrigerator.

“That’s great,” replied Campbell.

Carolyn set the bottle down along with two glasses and fished her wine key out of her junk drawer. When the bottle was open, she poured a glass for each of them and then sat down on one of the stools. “Cheers.”

Campbell raised her glass and they toasted. Carolyn studied the younger agent’s face. She hadn’t changed much in the years since she had left the Virginia Beach Police Department to join the Secret Service. She still looked young and was still very pretty.

While times had changed since Carolyn had joined the Service, she knew it hadn’t changed that much and that it was still difficult for women, especially attractive ones like Elise. The long hours, the days and weeks away from family, the lonely hotel rooms—it all came together to create some less than professional situations if people weren’t vigilant.

Carolyn took a sip of wine and then set the glass down. Raising her eyebrows, she asked, “So what did you need to talk about?”

Elise took a drink before responding. “The president.”

Call it intuition, but Carolyn instantly had a bad feeling about where this might be going. Fairly or unfairly, President Robert Alden had a reputation as being a bit of a womanizer—this, despite the fact that his wife, Terry, was a very good-looking woman. Many said the rumors about Alden were untrue and were due only to his good looks and the fact that so many women found him so desirable. In Carolyn’s experience, though, where there was smoke, there was usually fire, and the idea of the president coming on to one of the agents sworn to protect him, though incredibly unprofessional, was not beyond the realm of possibility.

“What about him?” replied Leonard.

Campbell took another sip from her glass and stared past her mentor to the calendar on the woman’s refrigerator. “When you were on presidential detail, did you ever hear anything you weren’t supposed to hear?”

Carolyn studied her young protégée. “All the time. But it’s your job to ignore it and forget it.”

“What if I can’t?”

“Then you need to find another job.”

“C’mon, Carolyn,” stated Campbell as she turned her eyes to her. “You know some things aren’t that easy.”

“Nothing about the Secret Service is easy,” replied Leonard, “especially protecting the president. If you want easy, become a politician. Other than that, either you can do your job as an agent or you can’t. There’s no gray.” Pausing, Carolyn then added, “Did the president say or do something to you that made you uncomfortable?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Did he say something to someone else about you or what he wanted to do to you?”

“Carolyn, my God. No. Is that why you think I’m here? You think I’m upset because the president came on to me?”

“He wouldn’t be the first.”

“Well, nothing happened,” Campbell replied flatly.

“So then, what are we talking about?”

Campbell eyed the bottle of wine and before she could ask, Leonard topped off her glass.

Elise held the stem near the base and slowly moved it in a circle. “What do you know about Nikki Hale?”

“Alden’s campaign staffer? The one who died?”

Campbell nodded and took another sip of wine.

“Not much more than what I heard from the agents working Alden’s detail during the campaign. She was young, twenty-five or twenty-six I believe. She was also very pretty. If I remember correctly, she had something to do with the campaign website; director of new media or something like that.

“A lot of people on the campaign didn’t like her. They thought she was a little too young and a little too inexperienced for such an important position. She rode the campaign bus and was on the plane everywhere Alden went. Everyone wanted to have that kind of access and I guess a lot of folks were jealous of her.”

“Do you remember how she died?”

Carolyn thought about it for a minute. “It was the end of last summer, just before the general elections, I think. Head-on collision in the Hamptons, right?”

Campbell nodded. “Fourth of July weekend. Alden had been out there for a big fund-raiser.”

“From what I heard, Nikki Hale was quite the partier, and that night was no exception. Her blood alcohol level was double the legal limit. She crossed into oncoming traffic and killed herself along with a family of four in the opposite lane.”

“I think President Alden had something to do with it.”

Carolyn looked at her. “You what?”

“I overheard him talking with Stephanie Gallo.”

“Elise, your job is not to listen in on the president’s private conversations. Besides, do you think the man would be so dumb as to admit to something like that in front of one of his Secret Service agents?”

“I was in the woods on Gallo’s estate. I don’t think either of them knew I was even there. As far as I could tell, they thought they were completely alone.”

“Wait a second. Why come to me with this?” asked Carolyn.

“Because I don’t know what to do. I need advice.”

Leonard set her wineglass down on the counter. “You want my advice? Forget the entire thing. You heard a snippet of a conversation and have taken it out of context. Your job is to protect the president, period. You start getting distracted, trying to make sense of what you’re hearing, and you’ll not only get the president killed, you’ll get yourself killed as well.”

“But what if he was involved in Nikki Hale’s death somehow?”

“If you think he might have been involved, tell your supervisor at the Service.”

“What if I’m wrong?” asked Campbell.

“Then you won’t have to worry about overhearing any more of the president’s private conversations because you’ll be bounced so hard you’ll need the space shuttle to deliver your final paycheck.”

Campbell was silent for a moment. “What if I told you Gallo knows all about it and she’s blackmailing the president?”

“I’d say that’s his problem.”

Elise shook her head. “You’ve made no secret about not being a fan of President Alden’s.”

“Well that’s the beauty of being a private citizen,” answered Leonard. “I can do that because I no longer work for the Secret Service.”

“Well, I believe in him. I
voted
for him.”

“You’re behind the curtain now, Elise. Be prepared to be disillusioned. There aren’t many honest men or women in Washington anymore. Politicians get where they are by the sheer force of their egos, not their convictions. And you know what? It’s our fault as voters. We don’t demand better candidates, so we end up getting what we deserve—on both sides of the aisle.”

“I agree with you. The majority of them are crooked and we should consider them all guilty until proven innocent,” said Campbell. “But I thought Alden was different. I still do.”

Leonard poured a little more wine into her glass. “For the sake of argument, let’s say you’re right about what you overheard. How can someone blackmail an honest man?”

Campbell didn’t have a response.

“What exactly,” asked Leonard, “did Stephanie Gallo say to the president?”

“She said that if he didn’t give her what she wanted, she was going to expose his involvement in the deaths of four innocent people and his would be one of the shortest administrations in U.S. history.”

“How do you know this had to do with Nikki Hale’s death?”

“Because after that threat,” answered Campbell, “they walked off arguing about the night she died.”

“Did you hear anything more specific?” asked Carolyn.

“Not really. Not from where I was standing.”

“What possible role could the president have had in Hale’s death? Did he get her loaded and hand her a set of car keys?”

“I wasn’t there. I don’t know, but Gallo was very insistent about his complicity and the president was very bothered by the whole thing.”

“So what was it Gallo was pressing him for?” said Leonard, switching to a more jovial tone. “Has she changed her mind about wanting a cabinet position?”

Elise didn’t think now was an appropriate time to be making jokes.
“No,”
she replied harshly. “Actually, her daughter was just kidnapped in Afghanistan and she wants the president’s help.”

“I’m sorry,” replied Leonard. “I wasn’t aware of that.”

Elise brushed it off. “It’s okay. No one knows. They’re keeping it very quiet. Gallo’s daughter is a doctor who was working for some NGO over there. Apparently, the kidnappers want to trade her for some high-ranking al-Qaeda operative that the Afghans are holding for trial.”

“And Alden is going to arrange the trade?”

“Not exactly,” said Campbell.

“What do you mean,
not exactly
?”

“He doesn’t think it’s right to force the Afghans to give the AQ operative up. He’s a terrorist who has been involved with the killing of multiple Afghan government officials. President Alden supports the Afghans in establishing the rule of law and thinks they should prosecute the guy in full.”

“And Stephanie Gallo isn’t pleased with that position, is she?”

“You’ve got two children,” replied Campbell. “How would you feel if one of them was being held hostage and the person you’d helped get elected to the most powerful office in the world wouldn’t get your child back for you?”

“I’d be angry, very angry.”

“As is she, apparently.”

“Hence the blackmail,” stated Carolyn.

Campbell nodded.

“Kidnapping a United States citizen is serious business. For all intents and purposes, we
own
Afghanistan. I’ve got to imagine that we’re throwing everything we have at this. There’s no way we’re leaving any rocks unturned over there. Short of forcing the Afghans to give us the al-Qaeda operative to trade out for Mrs. Gallo’s daughter, I don’t know what more the president could do, which makes me think either he’s prepared to call her bluff or there’s actually nothing there for him to be blackmailed over.”

“There’s something else,” stated Campbell.

Carolyn raised her eyebrows again and waited.

“The trip we just wrapped up was official business—all except for one leg.”

“What was the leg?” asked Carolyn.

“We flew to Maine so the president could see Stephanie Gallo.”

Leonard pursed her lips and exhaled. She had heard that the first lady was no fan of Stephanie Gallo’s. Terry Alden’s contempt for the woman was thinly veiled at best. It made no difference how much Gallo had aided her husband’s campaign. The first lady didn’t see Gallo as an ally, she saw her as a rival for her husband’s time, interest, and affection. In fact, it had been widely rumored that it was because of Mrs. Alden’s strong protestations that Stephanie Gallo did not stay on past the transition period and move into a permanent position within Robert Alden’s administration.